It’s really a bit schizoid, this big Bentley convertible. On the one hand, it’s all echt high-class Britmobile – the old-style dash-mounted blower vents, the heavy quietness of its ride. On the other hand, mash down on the gas pedal and listen to that braaapppp 521-horsepower V8 exhaust – sounds like a night at the drag races, pure and simple.

What we have here is the 2014 Bentley Continental GT V8 S in “ice,” a very chilling off-white that looks a bit pearlescent. This is a car that costs $250,665, including $4,395 for that Ice paint job, and $2,480 for the “sports exhaust,” and it is an uncanny combination of flat-out performance car and a car you might want to take to the Four Seasons for Sunday lunch. (We did that, and the doorman gladly let us park right outside the front door, lock it up and leave it. No charge for parking. They like rubbing up to cars like this.)

First, the performance: about a year ago, we tested the W12-engine version of this convertible, with its 6-liter 616-horsepower engine. Yes, it was very fast. This year, what is nearly the same car came with the twin-turbo 521-horsepower 4-liter V8 S (as opposed to the 500-horsepower V8 without the S) engine. Did we notice the difference in performance with 95 fewer horses under the hood? No. Does it matter which engine you have? Not really, except that the V8 is probably easier to work on, but since you’re not going to be working on it yourself, this doesn’t really matter. What matters is how the car goes – zero to 60 in 4.5 seconds, zero to 100 in 10.6 seconds, top speed 191 mph. Did we mention that it also has all-wheel-drive? Having spent a month in a particularly nasty New England winter earlier this year, I just can’t see getting the old Bentley out to slog 10 miles through the blizzard for a quart of milk. It’s kind of like breaking out your best Chesterfield coat to go climb Mt. Everest.

The other side of the performance coin in this beast is the historic-feeling luxo ride you get for your quarter of a million dollars. The easy observation is that it just feels more luxurious, but that’s facile. What makes it feel that way is a combination of elements. On the “key options” list, Bentley makes mention of “driving specification including colour specifications,” which means that the leather seats and door panels include “quilted stitching,” which is not easy to do, according to my friend Laszlo, an upholsterer who does fine carriage-trade pieces. On the two-tone leather itself, Bentley dubs the red part of the seat “Hotspur,” and the black part “Beluga.” Okay, whatever’s right.

This is as good a place as any to discuss the seats. When you look at the car as a whole, the smooth design of the body gives off an aura of sitting fairly low to the ground, a feeling of compactness. The car is only 189 inches long, which is quite short in the world of Bentleys and other luxury cars. But it’s a four-seater. That means that the rear seats get short shrift, and whoever sits back there better be very short or, preferably, invisible. With the front seats pushed back for a normal-sized person, there is no rear-seat legroom. With three of us in the car, the guy riding shotgun had to move his seat way up forward for the rear-seat passenger to even be able to sit down. Not that this really matters, because this car seems to be designed for two people, and the back seat is for extra luggage or groceries. It’s not as cramped as, say, a Porsche or a Lexus SC430, but it is tight.

On the road, with the top down you will get the predictable ruffling of the hair but it’s mitigated by the wind deflector that can be installed in back of you. With the top up, it’s a revelation. The three-layer top, with its seven bows, makes you feel like you’re in a coupe. It’s snug, it’s tightly clamped to the car, the windows and the top make a perfect seal. There’s just no noise (and this from the country that gave us the MGA and the MGB, with their colorful ideas on the mechanics of convertible tops.)

The Bentley ride itself is smooth, not very bumpy but loaded with confidence. You get the feeling that it will take that long right-hand bend at a lot more than the recommended speed on that yellow road sign. Maybe it’s the weight (5,500 pounds), maybe it’s just the way the car is suspended. In either case, the Bentley just powers through and keeps on.

Fuel economy? Why do you ask? It gets about 15 to 17 miles per gallon, overall, which isn’t outrageous (think of a humongous pickup truck’s gas mileage) and, besides, it shouldn’t matter if you’re even thinking of buying this car.

In the end, the question fairly comes up of whether to buy one of these or, say, a Benz or Audi convertible, or maybe a Ferrari or Aston Martin or Maserati. They’re all interesting cars, but none of them says or does quite the same thing as the Bentley. Maybe it’s feeling of history that’s still in the Bentley’s DNA – what other car, in 2014, has those big old-fashioned chrome blower vents and push/pull knobs on the dashboard? Or maybe it’s the overall subdued and conservative aspect of the car, in spite of the fact that it sounds like a bleedin’ A-fuel dragster when you’re doing a ton down the Mall.